


...And Complications Unforeseen

by pagerunner



Series: the echoes of our choices [2]
Category: Borderlands
Genre: M/M, gayperion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 23:58:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4938895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagerunner/pseuds/pagerunner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One possible followup to Choices and Consequences, if Rhys' recovery after the ECHO implants doesn't go quite as smoothly as hoped. Neither do Vaughn's attempts to keep a lid on his own emotions about it. Uh-oh. Unabashed Rhys/Vaughn this time, at least on the part of the author (Vaughn's still working on the bashfulness, personally).</p>
            </blockquote>





	...And Complications Unforeseen

**Author's Note:**

> Credit where due, and because you're all going to want to see this: this one's heavily inspired by Redmiel's drawing of Rhys and Vaughn at http://redmiel.tumblr.com/post/125813742335 .

Rhys’ recovery after the ECHO implants was swift and promising, but Vaughn found out all too soon that the doctors were right: he was still likely to have occasional weaknesses, and occasional lapses into trouble. The technology was complex, after all, and brain surgery was a delicate thing. Somewhere along the line, complications were to be expected.

He just hadn’t been counting on this one.

The morning it happened, Rhys was awake before him, which inevitably meant he hadn’t slept well. Vaughn rose to find his roommate already up, mostly dressed, and making coffee, although he looked dark-eyed and distracted about it. Vaughn gave him a sleepy greeting anyway, and after Rhys’ perfunctory, slightly shaky wave, went to take a shower—thinking all the while about how even something this simple was a logistical challenge for Rhys these days. His new circuitry might be waterproofed to the best of the manufacturers’ ability, but Rhys still had to be careful, especially about the data port. A short-out there could be deadly.

 _I’d never have the patience to deal with that,_ Vaughn thought, shaking his head even while he toweled his hair dry. _Rhys may give me shit about my glasses, but at least those come off…_

Rhys’ mods didn’t. And the maintenance kit and bottle of migraine medicine on the bathroom counter reminded Vaughn how many things Rhys was dealing with right now, no matter how much he was stubbornly pretending they weren’t a big deal.

Most days, Vaughn was willing to believe him about that. Some days, he wondered.

Vaughn tilted the bottle back and forth with one finger, listening to the pills rattle. There weren’t many left. Rhys had been depleting the supply. Vaughn grimaced, then tugged on his shirt. He knew Rhys didn’t want him to worry, but still…

His thoughts were interrupted by a noise outside. It sounded like something falling. And breaking.

“Uh….Rhys?” he called. There wasn’t a response. Vaughn pulled the rest of his clothes on in a hurry and grabbed his glasses off the counter, and pushed open the door with his other hand. 

Through his fuzzy, uncorrected vision, Vaughn saw Rhys’ silhouette doubled over the kitchen table. He gulped. Rhys wasn’t just tired and slouching this time; he looked like he was in pain. And when Vaughn jammed his glasses on, everything sharpened into awful specifics. Rhys’ eyes were squeezed shut, with light flickering through his eyelid and on the port on his temple, and his mechanical arm was spasming uncontrollably.

“Oh, shit,” Vaughn breathed.

Rhys didn’t reply. It wasn’t even apparent that he’d heard. He just bit back a moan and pounded his left fist, the one he could control, on the table. The other one sparked at the joints, and his hand flailed out suddenly, knocking the remains of his broken coffee mug onto the floor in a spray of spilled liquid and shards. Vaughn rushed forward, grabbing his friend by the shoulders, and completely ignored the fact that he’d just cut his own foot on the broken ceramic.

“Rhys,” he said, his voice strained. “Rhys, buddy, talk to me.’

Rhys just swore at first. When he pried his eyes open, Vaughn saw his ECHO eye still flickering erratically. “M…my head,” he said at last. “Oh, fuck, it _hurts.”_

Vaughn stared in dismay, feeling how much his friend was shaking. “How long has—oh, God, you gotta sit down.” 

Rhys tried to let himself be guided, but the twitching arm pulled him off balance. Vaughn found himself trying to support Rhys as he went straight down to his knees instead. The thump knocked the rest of his breath from him. Vaughn watched, feeling helpless.

“I can’t make it stop,” Rhys whispered. Tears glistened in his eyes, refracting light oddly in the left. “Something started…misfiring. And I c-can’t make it stop.”

Vaughn didn’t know how to make it stop either. He just watched in horror for a second more, then pulled Rhys into a hug. Rhys pressed his face against Vaughn’s shoulder, clutched at his back with his left hand, and struggled to hold his right arm out of the way as it shook. He didn’t say anything else. There was just a low, ragged sound Vaughn didn’t want to identify as a sob.

“I’ve got you,” Vaughn said instead, one hand cradling Rhys’ head. HIs voice was muffled, pressed as he was against Rhys’ temple. His lips accidentally brushed the data port as he spoke. “I’ve got you.”

Rhys shivered, but whether it was from that particular touch was hard to say. Still, Vaughn flushed and turned his head aside. The skin was still sensitive there, probably. Another point of overstimulation. And if the entire ECHO system was going haywire all at once…

“We need to call for help,” Vaughn said, which made Rhys go tense and try to push himself away.

“No,” he said. The ECHO eye flashed dangerously. “I…I can’t. They won’t—“

“Rhys, you need a doctor. Now.”

“I’ve already _been,”_ Rhys said, and Vaughn hesitated. Rhys was still holding onto him, still needing the support, but he looked just as much like he wanted to run. “They said they c-can’t…”

“When? You haven’t had a checkup in two weeks.”

Rhys shook his head, looking miserable. “Two days ago. And…before. I d-didn’t tell you…knew you’d worry….oh, God.” He squeezed his eyes shut against another wave of pain. Vaughn tried to protest and reach for his comm, but Rhys cut him off. “There’s nothing else they can _do,_ Vaughn. It integrates or it doesn’t." 

“What are you saying?”

“If I go to them again, they’ll…they’ll take it _out,_ Vaughn. The whole system. And I-I can’t…they’ll just leave holes…”

The implications hit Vaughn all at once. His arm, his eye, the implant in his head…Vaughn’s stomach turned. And Rhys stopped talking, in part because his arm had twitched so much he’d shuddered all over and bitten his tongue. Vaughn gathered him in again, listening to Rhys’ ragged breathing. The hammer of his heartbeat quaked them both.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Okay. I’ll help. How can I help? Your pills?”

Rhys shook his head. Vaughn felt the brush of his hair, noticing with a pang how soft it was un-styled like this. Of _all_ the things to be thinking about. “Already…took those,” Rhys said. “I need a reset.”

Vaughn thought for a second. “The emergency drive?”

Rhys made a soft affirmative sound. Vaughn swallowed hard. Rhys still hadn’t used his data port outside of doctor-supervised diagnostics—and _those_ stats had come out fine, he thought bitterly. He wondered suddenly if Rhys had done something to hack the results in his own favor. But the doctors had still advised waiting a few more days before trying a full data interface, and Rhys had stuck to that. If they tried this and something went wrong…

Vaughn looked down at Rhys, which in and of itself made the decision for him. He was _never_ able to look down at Rhys. But the way he was huddled up now was making him so small. _Something’s already wrong, Vaughn. You better do it._

“Let’s get you to the bed. Can you stand up?”

Rhys looked queasy, but he tried. Vaughn did his best to help, too, even though the weight and balance were all wrong; Rhys’ new arm was heavier, and when it was this badly controlled, it was worse than deadweight. Vaughn stumbled and almost fell when Rhys leaned into him. “Sorry,” Rhys said weakly. “Sorry—“

Vaughn pushed him most of the way upright, grumbling a little until he recovered. “Just walk forward. I’ll get the door, hang on.”

Rhys did, then leaned heavily on the doorjamb when Vaughn went to open it. Rhys’ bed was a mess—he’d obviously been tossing and turning all night—but Vaughn at least did his best to tug the blankets straight before urging Rhys forward again. It took some maneuvering, but finally Rhys thudded down onto his back. He looked pale, and he was sweating. Vaughn sat on the edge of the bed beside him, using a corner of the sheet to wipe his forehead and temple dry.

“Bedside table,” Rhys croaked.

Vaughn pulled open the drawer, trying not to blush at what he was rummaging through. For one thing, even after years at this place, he was never going to get over the idea of condoms coming in Hyperion yellow. But there was another box stuffed far into the back, like Rhys had been trying to forget about it. It was branded HMT—Hyperion Medtech. 

He flipped it open to see a set of three data drives.

“One’s diagnostics, one’s backup, one’s a…an emergency boot disc,” Rhys said. “Should reconfigure…the ECHO setup.”

“Yeah, and what does that mean, exactly?” Vaughn pulled out the correct drive, feeling nervous again. He’d read _some_ of the manual, but he had to admit, he’d been hoping he’d never have to deal with this part. He’d skimmed over the specifics. He had, he thought now, been an idiot. “I mean, if I stick this into your head, is it going to fix all this? Or am I just gonna, I don’t know, void your warranty or something…?”

He’d been hoping for some sort of quip in return, really. Any kind of assurance that he wasn’t about to fry Rhys’ brain with this kind of forced reboot. He didn’t get one. Rhys just turned his still-flickering gaze to Vaughn, his robotic hand clenching the blankets so hard that something tore. “Please.”

Vaughn nodded shakily and pulled the cap off the drive. The result looked unnervingly like a needle. A big, blunt needle that he was going to have to jam into his friend’s skull.

 _Not okay, not okay, not okay,_ something in the back of his head howled. But he didn’t have much choice.

“Just…hold still,” he said uneasily, which was probably asking a lot. That—he’d swear forever after—was why he reached out and gently braced Rhys’ head, cupping one hand against his cheek. With the other hand, he slid the drive into its dock.

The reaction was instantaneous.

Rhys stiffened and jerked, and his eye lit up so brightly that the blue washed out to white. Then, after a faint, worrying moan, he went silent and still, almost as if he’d fainted. The ECHO eye and the data port both dimmed.

“Rhys?” Vaughn said, leaning closer. He didn’t respond. “Rhys, are you…”

Before he could say anything else, the eye whirred back to life.

Vaughn drew back, his fingers slowly withdrawing from Rhys’ cheek. There was something so utterly robotic about this—a boot sequence, plain and simple—that it was eerie to watch. His friend’s consciousness had simply been shunted away to prevent interference, and in its place was a methodical sequence of startups and systems tests. A small light spun in circles around the edge of the port, like it was marking the progress of loading data from the drive, and then the eye opened to its full capacity. 

Vaughn scooted back, feeling strangely cold, as Rhys’ robotic hand relaxed from the sheets and turned itself over. The light in its palm slowly illuminated, and from that central point, the projected display popped up, running a steady blur of data. Vaughn couldn’t read much of it from this angle. He barely dared even to move. He just waited, his heart in his throat, until the rush of codes and status reports came to a stop. For a moment, the display was empty.

Then another line finally popped up.

_ECHO system restore complete. Debug and repair successful. All systems nominal. Welcome to Hyperion ECHONet._

The display shut down. All the lights dimmed down to normal. And Rhys’ head twitched slightly, like he was trying to shake his way back to consciousness after drifting halfway into a dream.

“Rhys?” Vaughn asked hastily. “Rhys, are you okay?”

It took a second, but Rhys finally replied, his voice hoarse but unmistakably his own. “I never…want to do that…again.”

Vaughn sat forward, trying to help prop Rhys up into a sitting position and get that _thing_ out of his head. Rhys, though, beat him it. He reached up with his left hand and yanked out the drive, wincing slightly as it disengaged. Vaughn knew it wasn’t going to come out bloody or anything, but somehow that was still what he expected, and watching the drive clatter onto the bedside table like any other old thumb drive was faintly surreal.

So was the look on Rhys’ face when he lifted his chin and met Vaughn’s eyes again. 

“Rhys,” Vaughn said again. “Seriously, are you okay?”

Rhys nodded faintly, sagging back against the pillows. “Yeah. But…oh, God, I want to sleep for a week.”

It felt like there was something Rhys had left unsaid. Vaughn tried to fill the space somehow. “I…I can call your boss. Get you the day off.”

Normally that would have been answered with a whole list of things to say or not to say, or a protest that he had to do it himself, but Rhys only nodded once more. “Thanks,” he said quietly. Then he added, “Vaughn…”

“What?”

“Seriously…thank you.”

Vaughn looked at his friend, weak and exhausted as he was, still strained from the stress and pain of all this. Yet there was the hint of a smile at one corner of his mouth. A very human, and strangely heartbreaking, smile.

And just this once, just this _once,_ something small and private and long, long buried inside Vaughn said, _Oh, fuck it._

He bent forward and pressed a soft kiss to that corner of Rhys’ mouth.

Later he’d blame the adrenaline. It was that, plus relief, plus too many other emotions coursing through him in equal measure, and he couldn’t really help himself, even if he knew this could only last for a moment. Even though he was probably scratching Rhys with his goatee, and he was balanced so badly he was probably going to fall off the bed or onto Rhys at any moment, and he wasn’t sure which would be more embarrassing. And for God’s sake, he _knew_ Rhys had a girlfriend ( _sorry, Stacey_ ), and he had no business whatsoever doing this. He did it anyway. He even managed for a couple rapid heartbeats to stop thinking about it, and just feel the warmth of Rhys’ lips and his breath and that faint, hitching gasp Rhys made. It was impossible not to respond to that sound, on a deep and undeniably yearning level, but Vaughn pulled back before he could do anything truly stupid about it.

Even so, it meant he was sitting there in Rhys’ glowing gaze while Rhys blinked at him in surprise. Not dismay, at least, and mercifully not disgust, but…surprise. And his hand moved on the blanket, almost close enough now to brush Vaughn’s own. His cybernetic eye brightened.

That was what did it. Feeling suddenly, painfully aware that Rhys’ refreshed ECHO system was probably able to scan _everything—_ heart rate, eye dilation, localized body temperatures, who knew what else—Vaughn coughed and got off the bed.

“Get some sleep, you jackass,” he said, with a much more ordinary shove to Rhys’ shoulder. Then he turned away in a hurry. There wasn’t any need for Rhys to see him swiping roughly at both eyes beneath the lenses of his glasses—especially not when he’d have to explain, and that meant repeating the memories still echoing inside his head. 

 _You need to be aware,_ the surgeon had told him privately all these weeks ago, _that after this surgery, there are likely to be…complications._

Complications. Of all the words. Vaughn was still turning it over and examining the irony as he sagged into a seat at the kitchen table, there beside the mess of Rhys’ shattered coffee cup. And he heard himself laughing as he put his head in his hands.

God, had she ever been right. 


End file.
